If I Leave All For Thee, Wilt Thou Exchange, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

If I Leave All For Thee, Wilt Thou Exchange

If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange
And be all to me? Shall I never miss
Home-talk and blessing and the common kiss
That comes to each in turn, nor count it strange,
When I look up, to drop on a new range
Of walls and floors, another home than this?
Nay, wilt thou fill that place by me which is
Filled by dead eyes too tender to know change
That’ s hardest. If to conquer love, has tried,
To conquer grief, tries more, as all things prove,
For grief indeed is love and grief beside.
Alas, I have grieved so I am hard to love.
Yet love mewilt thou? Open thy heart wide,
And fold within, the wet wings of thy dove.

poems.one - Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Elizabeth Barrett Browning